Top-Level Domain In the DNS hierarchy, a top-level domain (TLD) is directly connected to the root. In the FQDN www.efficientip.com the top-level domain is “com”. As a direct delegation of the root domain, the list of top-level domains is relatively short and controlled by the ICANN and IANA organizations. The 1500 top-level domains can be grouped into 4 main families that have evolved over time: Country code domains following the ISO 3166 codes like .ar for Argentina, .hu for Hungary or .sn for Senegal. Generic domains (highest proportion of the domains) in which we find the historical domains like .com or .edu and geographical examples such as cities and brands. Some very specific domains are sponsored by organizations or firms Infrastructure domain .arpa, mainly used for mapping IP addresses to names in reverse resolution operation Test domains for private usage like .test, .example, .localhost or .invalid. To avoid confusion, these domains are not installed in the root zone Related Terminology What is DNS? What is Domain Generation Algorithm? What is DNS Text Record? What is DNS SPF Record? What is FQDN? Learn More Reports & Surveys IDC 2023 Global Network Automation Report Explore Videos Network Object Manager Product Teaser Explore Videos Cloud Observer Product Overview Teaser Explore Events Networkshop 2023 Explore Case Studies Super-Pharm: Improving Revenue Protection by Replacing Microsoft DHCP With SOLIDserver Explore Case Studies University of Grenoble Alpes: Simplifying the IT merger of its entities with DDI Explore Case Studies Société Générale: Ensuring Business Continuity and Efficiency with Proven DDI, APIs and Automation Explore Events Infosecurity Europe 2023 Explore News EfficientIP Launches Free Tool to Detect Enterprises Risk of Data Exfiltration Explore News New Release SOLIDserver 8.2: Cloud Observer and Network Object Manager Explore Learn More